Dying Dream
by skywalker05
Summary: A certain Sith is somewhat back from the dead on Naboo, and Luke Skywalker is haunted...slightly AU.
1. Chapter 1

Theed; I am long unused to this opulence. It rained in the near past, a rain that now lies as a fine layer over the paving stones. The queen's entourage sloshes through this, ignoring it. Leia is imperturbed and I bored, but only on the surface where I must be stoic for presentation.

"The Republic is pleased to be honored by your people." Leia says quietly.

The woman at the forefront, a young human smiling with her cheeks framed in feathers, nods graciously. "Thank you. And you personally, Princess--I hope your visit to the palace is comfortable."

She beckons to her own group. Leia, C-3PO, Min Fsaid, the Noghri and I follow.

There is a voice in the ornate halls. Its psychic consistency is like old blood; splashed first, than soaked into the stone. I keep at a relaxed watchfulness, because the traces are old but of spreading consequence. In certain places there are words, maybe, of thoughts and not of mouth.

"Fire...I'm not fulfilling my purpose...retaliation! Impact...scourge of the stars! ...systemmaster!"

I am not surprised, because the Force can not be.

The bodyguard stint gets boring really quickly. I will speak of public support of the Jedi in the next few days and sessions--Naboo has a peaceful, high-minded populace that will probably support the _praxeum _ and Leia's various economic entreaties.

They give me a room in a guest wing, an almost empty place without the severity of Coruscant. The academy would have to be on a livelier planet--which Naboo is, but not at the moment, from my point of view. The possibility will be explored.

I hear the voice again that night. Noiseless somehow, but with character. It says hateful things like teenage poetry as I try to go to sleep.

"I'll spare he who has nothing to do with me!...impatience...subservient, yes. And forgotten!" There comes with this last a wash of something, pure dark-side power of a leprous sort. I can't stay still.

I give up rest and understanding, pull my overcloak on and walk out. My skin feels livid compared to the cool air and darkness. There is a guard in the distance with a crested headpiece. I call to him. "Hey!" echoes.

He turns and comes nearer. "Sir?"

"Did you hear something just now, like a voice?"

"No sir. Nothing."

How can that be? It echoed in the walls like my voice! I move as if to backhand the man, swift, and hold him to the wall with the Force. Energy moves on my command, twisting like a captured worm. It is unfamiliar, and so easy. The guard stammers, to surprised and peace-softened to reach for his blaster.

I release him, sated by harsh reality, and hurriedly return to my room uncertain of what I am thinking, nearly collapsing with relief. Now I can sleep as if life-energy has been leeched away.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey Lady Kelina, I think I remembered your name! Woo! Thanks Sno-Chan, me first vict--I mean reviewer. MTFBWY_

II

Leia asks me what is wrong as we go to breakfast (conference) in the morning. "Nothing." I say. "Not now."

The close conference room is small but open with ornate windows and a dull fiery colored tile floor. We sit around a low table in the center; Queen Kelina and her handmaidens, a Gungan representative of the Naboo moon Ohma-D'un who still stall in sending a delegation to the Senate, and we the group from Coruscant. They speak of alliances, peacetime organization. Min Fsaid, Dressellian senator, speaks against the standardization of galaxy-wide education. "Master Skywalker." says the queen.

Then I stand, and still my voice to a timbre of confidence. So I begin, a bit surprised by the monarchy; "I'm not a Master yet. Not because of my experiences--and because there is no order of Jedi. I wish to return them, beginning with seeking Force-sensitive people and also a place of solace to train them. We will keep peace at behest of the Senate and Chief of State--"

Something clenches through me, something physical I think that translates to a pain that bends me, twists tenses, ennobles--then I have to move, lunge, leap. Voices are a haze. I feel someone touch me as I move toward them, and it is like clearing fog from my eyes. I am released into a hard chair across the table from mine, and the others are scattered, afraid.

"I'm sorry." I whisper. I look at their eyes after a moment. The queen's handmaidens have arranged themselves before Kelina with vibroknives in their hands, and Fsaid is fearful. Leia comes hurriedly to my side beside the Gungan who had caught my retreat, or attack, or spasm. "Hey," she says. "Why didn't you tell me something was wrong? Is it in the Force? If it's dangerous to this gathering...!" Her anger sobers me.

I pass a hand over my head, feeling alien. "It's just me. Something in the Force, yes...but I don't know what!"

The queen and Fsaid return to their seats like birds to a roost. The Noghri had halted in mid-leap across the table, and stay crouched there. I hadn't meant to frighten them--hate that sensation--but battle savoring it at the same time. What--

I breathe deeply and stand up, pulling Leia's professional mien around me as I did the same with my cloak. 'I'm sorry." Again I can not speak loudly. "Dismiss me for this session, please."

The queen nods. I squeeze Leia's hand and leave the room, through a small hallway. The Gungan a warrior I think, who halted my rush follows. I want to turn to him, but flick a distracted look to my reflection, from a mirror on a door. It almost surprises me, not my known face but the eyes. They are too kind, too soft and unfeeling, for my experiences. I scowl.

"Skywalker?" says the Gungan, who stands now holding a striped feather from his headdress.

I look up at him and judge his fighting prowess. Warrior indeed; there is wiry muscle at his bare, speckled arms, and he wears a loose tunic with armored-plated pants and a decorated staff at his back. He says, "You been having visions, Jedi Skywalker?"

"No."

"I have."

"Really. Can you, explain this?" The world is crisp with easy power; irritation.

"I don't know much about the Force, but I been seein' things beyond my eyes. Darkness comes, or never left, and waits for someone to understand it. Me, I thinks it found you."

I am astonished. Contradictions rise up, but I organize my thoughts in habit. "Yes. "I nod. "That makes sense. But what force, a person? You may be Force-sensitive. I found a way to test--"

He holds up a hand. "Wees-- we should talk of this later..."

I don't understand this reasoning, but nod.

"Part of our delegation is stayin' in the palace." He has an uncanny optimistic tone. "Ask for Lorti Rall, this evening, and someone will take you to a good meeting place. Yes?"

Again I nod. Lorti Rall rejoins his group.


	3. Chapter 3

**Eowyn**; thanks for paying attention. Critique, please! And I'm moving slowly through Mirromath

Thank you **SpiritWhite **and **DarthGladiator45**; reviews are my breath & words. It's supposed to be a little confusing right now, unless that's less a plot and more a sentance or format problem, in which case please point that out.

III

I go into the conference room at the end of the meeting.

"Leia." I say. "I'm sorry."

She pushes the braids hanging over her shoulders back to the rest of her hair. "I finished your planned speech. But the queen is ruffled. Now we're meeting suspicion of the Jedi here as well, and this was not expected." She looks at me sharply, still not accusing.

I sit down. "I think there is some sort of spirit here, something old, some powerful presence."

"And it's influencing you?"

I nod. I realize things, stacked priorities, and don't like them. I stand again and point at my sister. "There might be an answer--already. One of the Gungans has seen it too; he may be Force-sensitive." She smiles a little, wearily. "But this thing--it's dark. I don't know about evil, but dark. Watch out for me, will you? I may do more damage."

Leia looks down from me, toward the Noghri at the doors. "I'll watch out."

_Thank you for accepting this. _"Thank you."

She hugs me curtly and goes out. I follow soon after, but not to soon that I have to see her retreating back, always strong for someone else.

**"L**ights up two points."

I sit alone later, tucked into myself, just breathing, staying on the edge of the bed. I think; more danger and I have to deal with it. Slowly I fall. So it is some presence...some person. it is walking around in the back of my mind, undefinable. Something dead, yes, and in the past, but it doesn't know it's dead...I can't touch it, yet. I don't know it well and it's dormant sometimes.

I am not confidant. When I walked down the hall of the senate the people looked at me and they whispered, "_He killed Emperor Palpatine. He overturned the Empire. Jedi, at the head of the organization that birthed us sitting here today.'_

Our democracy is built on lies? No, only on simplicity.

This is going too far now. I can't find the enemy, but probably that means it won't go to its work soon.

I do some research on Naboo with the small computer in the corner. There is some history, but I get distracted by a swoop racing view feed.


	4. Chapter 4

IV

As night falls I find my way to a garden behind the palace by way of a noisy Gungan bodyguard-in-training. When he leaves me alone but for Lorti Rall sitting on a bench with his long head bowed, the stars and the river-water give scant natural light. More illumination puddles out from the palace, but all these statues, seats and plants cast long, dark shadows.

When I approach Lorti he stands up and bobs his head. His nervousness beats between us, though I can't read any exceptional expression in his eyes on their short stalks. I say, "Good evening."

"Good evening. You trust we are alone, unfollowed, unallthat..."

"Tell me what you've seen."

"Ah, terrible things. Visions come like mirrors, like reflections in water. Weesa, my people, are thinkin some dark greatness... is coming."

"Enough with the theatrics." There is a prickle in the Force like someone approaches, but they are hiding and just brush along our area of influence.

Lorti goes on after a moment, covering up slight surprise and irritation. "I seen ghosts in these humans' hallways, always fighting. Then someone gets in between them--this bein the part I see most often. Another man brings his sword between them. One, the more absolutely monstrous, though they both scare me a little, turn to the newcomer and its like he realizes he's a ghost fighting a ghost, and here comes along something living to latch on to. Sorry this sounds--I gettin' only impressions. I know the one, he's mean like a sando aqua monster. I can't quite describe...the other's kinda protective-mean, like a...nesting duck...the last is you."

I ask, "What's a duck?"

"Did you see the birds on the water on the way in? That's them."

"Ah." I fold my hands into my cloak and glance up at the foreign stars. Never could get out of the habit of daydreaming, though now with discipline and all it is just formless..."And the vision gave you no clue of its result."

Lorti shakes his head no.

"Well we can't fight physically...you may now be my greatest aid."

"Meesa, Jedi Skywalker?"

"Yes. Please try to do as much research as you can, history and war here, perhaps, or anything about the Jedi or Sith, and be ready for more visions!"

"Sith?"

"Dark Jedi--no, so completely dark that they've joined the dark side of the Force. They use their powers to manipulate and kill. That's about all we know. Once their numbers were massive like those of the Jedi in the Old Republic but..."

I test Lorti for Jedi potential, by touching the point of his mind that I discovered in Leia, that old instinct. I take a step backwards as dizziness overwhelms me, but the physical impact sensation is much less than with Leia--perhaps this means Lorti is mildly Force-sensitive, or that his only skill lies in having these visions? But I don't know. I thank him and leave. As I do Leia emerges from a nearby pathway, dressed dark.

"I haven't been spying on you." She says immediately.

"I know."

"But I was going to."

I nod, understanding. "We're just trying to make sense of this. I'm pretty sure Lorti Rall, the Gungan warrior, has Jedi potential!" I sigh then and look down. "But no explanation has come yet." Then, "You wanted to make sure I didn't hurt him, didn't you?"

She nods. "I am doing both of my jobs. "

"Thank you."

"Gungans are holding a rally at the palace tomorrow, and sending a delegation up. Our speaking with the Queen for that day will be delayed. Min Fsaid and I were wanting to go to the seaside here, just to fit something in. You want to come?

To be with normal people, civilian people? That'll be different. "Sure." We walk back together.

**A/N: This chapter is apparently dedicated to Alan Dean Foster and George Lucas, the combination of which penned this lovely little piece in the original novelization of _A New Hope_: ( Luke is in Ben's house) "I understand you're quite the pilot yourself. Piloting and navigation aren't hereditary, but a number of the things that can combine to make a good pilot are. Those you may have inherited. Still, even a duck needs to be taught how to swim."**

**"What's a duck?" Luke asked curiously.**

**"Never mind..."**


	5. Chapter 5

V

Around noon, the palace doors rattle. Incredible emotion beats toward all Naboo government. A female Arcona guard sees me wandering (Leia has left. I do not trust me, somehow, to be around 'normal people'.) and says, "They're dissatisfied with all the discrimination. The Queen is seeing some of them at the first front balcony, that's the one right of the great doorway, if you wish to join them, Master Jedi."

She is sharp and doesn't gloss things over. "Yes." I say.

**T**here's a circle of Gungans, in a mix of traditional and popular dress, around Lorti's group, Queen Kelina, and her handmaidens and guards. Their leader, no warrior but a young male with bone earrings, practically spits in the Queen' s face. "Weesa demanden treating _as_ citizens, not just in name but in what you common people be thinkin'!" His voice is deep and insufferable. I slip through the crowd.

The Queen speaks calmly, restraining surprisingly little anger. "It will take time to integrate two great cultures, my friend. I apologize for the monarchy that the law of peace is not always upheld as our populations move about."

He moves angrily, so swept up in ruin and hurt. "Yousa sorry doin nothin for the people!"

She has to take a few steps backwards as he moves, brandishing nothing but his integrity. Anarchy gives me a base anger. I snap my lightsaber up on, and point the terminal curve at the insurgent's face. I snarl, "Keep your place." Confusion overwhelms me; who an I working for, the Queen? And where--where'd this idea come from that I can end disputes with a lightsaber...

Kelina shouts, "Stop this!"

Some Gungan, a young one, slaps his wooden pike down on my hands. I move toward him, filled with my weapon-hum and screams--someone pulls at me from the other side and clumsily punches, almost slapping in his clumsiness. "Stop it! You said--" He retreats.

I follow, enraged at the audacity, and he runs--stairs. I nearly fall down them, hadn't seen the lay of the balcony--my lanky prey bursts running across the street below. I can't stop. He's in my sights now. The dark side fills my strength, but there's some control faltering my swiftest steps. The Gungan runs into a sidestreet, overshadowed with high trees. I catch up and sweep the feet out form under him. We go down together, he screams strangely, and now my lightsaber flashes down--but where I stab at his face there is nothing. For a human, he is too thin--my vision blurs. Who am I fighting? Not that Padawan whelp?

His long lets coil and kick into my stomach. A wave of sickness--but when he springs up I am after him. My body feels strange, like ill-fitting clothing--my quarry swerves through an open doorway into a blue-black stone building, and pulls the abnormal closure down. I slice his hands away from the door, just a sear, and roll inside, low--

As soon as my hands slap the floor cold marches up through them and I--I don't know where I've been. Fight instinct, _instinct, _not discipline, slicks my mind. I remember it took me. What did I _do_? Kill? "Leia!"

"Skywalker." Lorti tremblingly speaks from the wall by the door, where he sits curled up like a spider in his long legs and armored mottled skin.

I deactivate my lightsaber and drop it where it will fall. "I'm sorry."

"Keep yousa away from me!"

"Of course." I stand slowly, look around this cavernous place and barely see the catwalk-edged half-filled warehouse, occupied by boxes in all the floorspace except the center, where the rock tiles on the floor are carved and colored into the freight company's emblem, a couple basic letters over a shooting star.

My enemy stands there, formless, but if I close in combat with him we will become equally real--whatever that means right now.

"Don't move, Lorti." I beg, and I step into the circle. The spirit that has been goading me looks like a black-shrouded humanoid, too completely shrouded to look real, the bare bones or illustration of Sith as individual, intelligent beings. A long-handled red lightsaber appears live in its--his--hand. I am almost disappointed. Such a physical contest, as I tread into the realm of luminous existence? But that, I see, is how he thinks.

He cuts down and my saber is able to catch his, though it sounds like I am alone. His unspecified feet beat the ground. His attacks grow swift, less obvious, as I meet the first few, and then we are moving together, testing, hands flashing up, down, slice, turn, catch, split-second strategy, with the warring facets of the Force in the back of my mind, while still he is in the back of my mind--

**I **have time to feel sorry for Lorti. He remains curled on the floor, watching me duel with no one wearing some wild look I've never seen. he's thinking strangely, he thinks, but the words that come are,

"Why is dancing like dying?" He's so moved by the light, I know what that's like, taking up his eyes or the organ that produces mysticism. He whispers, "_How is dancing like dying_?"


	6. Chapter 6

V

Maybe this is what it's like to be a spirit. I do feel corporeal, but more fluid than ever. The landscape us a long black corridor with walls and ceiling obscured by shifting smoke like liquid curtains of cobwebs. I breath heavily.

The being is out of my head, thank the Force! Now he's standing in front of me. Bent, shrouded, a plethora of Sith-fuel emotions, and he raises sun-colored eyes in an alienly patterned, lean human--no, Zabrak--face. I _know _that he is fully alive, nearly animal instead of mastermind or fleet commander; a young acolyte of the dark side only.

Dizzy a little, from the floating insubstantial reality and the intensity of the Sith's stare, I say, "I can fight you out of my consciousness again. What do you want."

He flexes his gnarl-gloved hands but I think both of us are rooted to the ground. "I am alive." His voice has a thick, sibilant formal accent; I can sense desperation or denial in it. "My Master deserted me!" All anger, hate, concentrated down into his glare.

Confused, I decide to just speak it. "You are dead."

"No! It cannot be."

"Tell me then who this master is." Confidence from unknown/familiar source, not second hand rage, shouts from me.

"_Lord Sidious_." He hisses. The Force tell me that this is just an alias of one _Palpatine_.

I allow a small smile." He was killed, by another apprentice."

"Now I know you lie!" At the final exclamation he lunges forward; I step back just dancing with defensive footwork. The landscape changes; an infinity of obsidian with silver tracking the Sith and I now makes space around us, both free, both unarmed like in a dream.

"I saw his death." I say. "I was there."

The specter jumps toward me like a hungry sandpanther. I know in a split second that such power has infected my mind, taken my knowing self to his twisted half-real plane where--it hangs, between life and death because somehow the spirit knew how to implore to its former Master, who rejected it? The physical cannot affect me here, or has here become everything? But I am no innocent.

He jumps, I step aside, I seek the Force that is slightly far away here, not so much a complimentary partner sense than a tool. It comes, sturdy and knowing.

I am not sure which of us wills it, but old lightsabers appear in our hands.

We come together like any other battle, too much like any other in fact; no new weapon-chatter and variable noise as if I am just remembering how a _blue_ or green lightsaber feels against a red.

I get an idea just as his weapon/technique spouts another blade and I've never dealt with this before-martial arts(/dance)/swordplay-but I can deal with it now, just ramp up to his level and block catch block parry catch cut

I worm the Force into the little bits of his mind that I can know and track back through the conduits to a sure memory, where I spin and settle (somehow here my body is easier to leave to its own designs.)


	7. Chapter 7

VI

**I**--_Darth Maul_--am staring down at the Jedi my given data called Obi-Wan Kenobi. Already I have defeated his Master-a tasteful, useful, unprecedented victory. I skin the pit's edge with my halved saber; a mixture of healing/revigoration and success, pouring through the Force siphoned through me, slows sleepy time with primal pleasure unneeding of description. My enemy is going to attempt, succeed, a Force-pull to the dead one's lightsaber--

I--Luke Skywalker--in the split-second when the Sith's synapses react, wrestle up out of his thoughts I had recognized as once behind and now before 'me' and slow him, distract. His eyes widen, and I could control that, would if I just touched a little nearer the dark side intent--

I kill him, but I feel the pain-numbness of the slash, and his shocked surprise.

**I **wake up lying on my side in the center of that shooting-star emblem, little residual battle-pained, my lightsaber just beyond my fingertips. Again I'm lying there muttering, "Ben? Ben..."

_Obi-Wan _Kenobi.

I think, and wonder perhaps if this is my first free thought in a while, that I should have somehow shoothed my foe. What _was _he?

I get to my feet gently. Lorti Rall is set with his knees up to his front beside the small door we entered.

"How long has it been?" I say, hoarse, and I wonder to late whether I look frightening, emerging sweat-slicked from the how recently strobing darkness.

"Yousa only dancin for a few minutes. But it full of--it was full of purpose. You fought no one."

I nod, try to look reassuring. "I'm all right now, Lorti. it's gone.

"I just want to go back home."

**T**he room seems empty when Leia, Queen Kelina, and I sit around the large conference table after I rested, bathed, and dressed again in a sleeveless tunic and loose pants. I can explain calmly the ordeal and its repurcussions. Lorti is mentally shivery, and from all his delicious relief falls the fact that I did not kill anyone.

_He_ would have...

Lorti was right; I channeled the spirit of a Sith that fought in this palace once. That Obi-Wan fought and killed in this palace once. I could almost admire the alien's strength and focus in the Force. I reassure my sister with a stroke of thought and look at Kelina's now feather-framed face. "Your Highnes, would there be any record I could not have yet accessed to verify either this darksider's existance or an old Jedi's presense here?" Perhaps good information could come after all, about Ben and his Order.

"I am sorry, but there are none. Palpatine's hacking droids destroyed all mention of official Jedi activity here fast, because this is his homeworld. Some were apt to remember too much."

His homeworld. is new information to me! But otherwise--nothing. Likely, Palpatine sent this Sith to fight a Nubian Jedi. I am glad that Ben, perhaps with my intervention, destroyed him and left me with my emotion-fed father...

No, I am not sure of that. What could have been should not occupy and distract the thoughts.

FIN


End file.
